Arson is a difficult crime to
prove, so it’s no surprise that the federal government only
recently named two suspects in the 1998 fires that caused $12
million in damage atop the Vail ski area.
The 28-year-old
suspects, who both grew up in Eugene, Ore., have not been charged,
let alone found guilty, of anything at Vail. Some informed opinion
suggests guilt may never be established unless plea bargains in
other cases produce confessions.
Of course, lack of
evidence never stops many people from drawing conclusions. In times
of trauma, human nature seems to respond with shotgun conclusions.
Hence, after the 9/11 attacks, many people of dark complexions were
attacked simply. … well, simply because they maybe, kinda,
sorta looked like people from the Middle East.
And after
the fires at Vail in 1998, I heard educated people respond with
logic that was no better. The Sierra Club had better divulge what
it knows about the arsonist, one woman said. “Don’t tell me
they don’t know who it was,” she added. This was also about
the time that the term “eco-terrorism” was unleashed by headline
writers.
What may seem similarly wild was the speculation
that maybe even the ski company itself set the fires. It got
insurance money, a better-operating cafeteria atop the mountain,
and perhaps public sympathy — although it would seem the resort
also suffered a black eye.
The fires capped a time of
escalating tensions. The ski area was expanding even as the ski
company operator was becoming more corporate. Taking advantage of
the frenzy for initial public offerings, company officers who
helped deliver the company to stock-market investors were rewarded
with tens of millions of dollars. These public lands were the root
cause for that overnight wealth.
Not incidentally, the
Vail area had been seeing a rapid influx of big money and also
rapid population growth. Eagle County, where the resort is located,
was the nation’s tenth fastest growing county during that
decade.
Intensifying the story further was credible
evidence that the rare Canada lynx existed in the area where the
ski area expansion was to occur.
We’re down the
road seven years. What can we say for sure with hindsight? First,
the ski area’s argument for expansion was a sham. Ski area
officials — backed by the Forest Service — said
additional terrain was needed was to provide “insurance” terrain
for early and late seasons, when warm weather made other runs at
the ski area unskiable.
The first few years after this
expansion occurred were the perfect time to test that proposition.
They were drought years, but guess what? The expansion area
remained closed — in part because of habitat needs of the lynx.
Still, that simple fact exposed the fallacy of the need for the
expansion.
Now, when the expansion area is open, other
parts of the ski area are deserted. Vail’s skier days
haven’t grown. Colorado skier days remain the same as they
were before the fires. By the numbers, there was no good argument
for this additional use of public lands. Early opponents were
right. The expansion was about marketing and market share. It was
about bigger is better, about changing fashions and about using
public assets to sell real estate on nearby private land. And they
were right that it would trigger similar expansions at other ski
areas.
If Vail’s numbers have not grown, the ski
area remains one of the most wonderful ski experiences for those of
us who call ourselves intermediate skiers. Instead of trails that
seem like boulevards, the expansion area, now called Blue Sky
Basin, has the feel of backcountry skiing, but without the sweat.
Many ski areas across the West large and small have scrambled to
deliver similar experiences. There’s even a name for it:
“backcountry lite.”
As for the lynx habitat, the jury
remains out. If this is not necessarily the “last, best habitat in
Colorado,” as was cited as a provocation for the arson,
there’s new evidence that it continues to be good habitat.
Still, the ski area might be right. Ski area operations and lynx
might just be compatible.
But the broader, mostly
unarticulated point of contention is about wealth. It is about the
widening divisions between the economic classes. Vail had become
the symbol for wealth elbowing its way into the West, monopolizing
the public lands in the name of big-money recreation. In that
context, a swank eatery at the top of Vail Mountain must have
seemed an easy target.
Allen Best is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). He lived for many years in the Vail area
and now lives and writes in a Denver
suburb.
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